The new generation of technology has been an era of cloud computing, launch of new tablets, big data and lots more. A lot of these events have been very interesting and eye catching and have impacted many large organizations and technology strategists in the way they strategize their technology plans. On the contrary it is really important for us to know on how these big technology events has impacted the Small and Medium businesses. We at Directing IT believe that the smaller organizations have not been able to ripe the benefits of these upcoming technologies mostly because of lack of…

Cloud Technology is taking businesses to new dimensions and changing the way SMEs work. But why SMEs in particular? Imagine what if one can start an organization with almost negligible IT infrastructure and software license cost? Sounds dramatic, but is the best shade of cloud. Better known as PaaS (Platform as a service), it’s a platform where one can get the critical IT resources rented at a cost that attracts almost anyone to start a venture or rapidly expand the existing one. It is driving SMEs to expand and yet save them from blocking capital on IT assets. That means…

It is no brainer for anyone to guess that most small businesses are getting inclined towards technology solutions for their business needs. However, not often do these small businesses follow an objective process for selecting a technology system. As a general norm most of these small businesses try to save on the cost of purchasing a technology system and often purchase something that would come at the least cost. We believe that any system selection process should have certain basic objectives. Instead of looking at the cost alone, we should be looking at the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for…

At 30000 feet most stakeholders from Business and IT teams would believe that strategic investments in technology are must in order to keep innovating the business and gain competitive advantage. The ground reality, however, is very different. As the perspective of different stakeholders are quite varied with very different goals and objectives. This is why very often we see the Top Management of most small & medium businesses face the dilemma of whether it is worth investing into a particular technology. The primary objective of IT Consulting is to appraise the Top Management about the gaps between Business and IT…

Most technology researches in the recent past have shown that the small businesses are getting more focused towards their technology plans and have started understanding the importance of technology in their overall strategy. These research reports keep stating on how the technology budgets of small & medium businesses keeps increasing every year. However, when it comes to execution of these strategies most of the small businesses shy away from investing into the right technology resources, be it the technology people or the technology solutions. The owners of most small businesses prefer getting the job done by someone who is not…

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A typical start-up enterprise will emerge out from an idea of a business oriented person or someone who is thinking of a social cause. In both scenarios, the entrepreneur is busy thinking about the enterprise goals. Most entrepreneurs concentrate on a strong business strategy and put down the short term and long term business goals. Somewhere within the business strategy you may find a small section on technology or technology costs to be precise. Seldom do the start-ups have a technology strategy and if you question the existence of such an IT strategy, the most common answer would be that…

In today's world we are getting used to quick delivery of products and services. The quicker the service delivery gets, the higher our demands rise and the race continues forever. Thus the expectations from any business always keeps moving up-the-hill. The only way businesses can get smarter, quicker and better is by enhancing their technology continuously. This puts a lot of pressure on the technology guys, as they are always expected to be on their toes and keep delivering newer and better technology solutions at the least possible cost. This is a daunting task for even the most experienced technology…

In today's fast changing technology, cloud computing has come as a savior. It brings along loads of benefits such as reduced capital cost, less setup time, ease of adaptation, low technical skills required, more flexibility, and much more. Moving to a cloud platform allows you to concentrate on your business rather than worrying about the underlying technology complexities. Moreover, the cloud computing platforms are up-to-date to the latest technology changes and thus ensuring that you do not fall behind in the race for new upcoming technologies. We keep hearing about the benefits of cloud, yet a lot of us are…

"Nothing is permanent but change", the famous quote by Heraclitus was thought of decades ago. This philosophy of life fits in perfectly in our modern business environment. Organizations are evolving faster than ever before. Every organization is constantly striving to move ahead of their competition by bringing innovation in their products and services. These organizational changes directly affect to all departments, including the technology department. Thus it is really crucial that the Business Heads and the IT Heads work hand-in-hand at all times. In order to make this happen, every organization should have a structured Change Management process which should…

As we all know project management is all about managing cost, scope and time. Now, this is exactly what we try to do even in general life. The formal methodologies of project management allows one to manage cost, scope and time more effectively. Thus be it a small business or a large business the need for project management is a must. To understand this, let us look at some of the very obvious benefits of Project Management: Structured Planning Learning from past experiences Better efficiency in terms of cost, scope and time management Effective resource management Better risk control Enhanced…

Traditionally investment into a new technology is triggered by an organizational need that has been raised by one of the organizational staff. This reactive approach of finding a technology solution is mostly short sighted . To fulfill our immediate need, technology teams usually try to find a technology vendor who can take care of their immediate requirement and fits in within their technology budget. More often we realize that these technology solutions become a roadblock in the future for various reasons. A strategic approach towards any technology investment should be more proactive. Any technology team should ideally have a long…

In the past, technology has played a heroic role in the growth of most organizations, specially the large enterprises. Without technology it would have been impossible for large organizations to achieve scale. The various IT tools have helped these large enterprises in automating all aspects of their operations , be it transaction processing, information sharing, business intelligence, inventory management, regulatory compliances, etc….. and the list continues. On the contrary a lot of these IT tools that have helped the large enterprises to be the market leader for decades, have always been way too expensive for the smaller enterprises. In the…

As we begin our technology journey in 2013, we see a lot of hype about Big Data. While Big Data may have its own merits and de-merits, they may not matter much to the smaller businesses. For those who are still wondering on what "Big Data" is; in simple words it is nothing but a collection of really large and complex sets of data and the sheer size makes it difficult to process this data using our current database management tools and applications. For decades, companies have been making business decisions based on transactional data stored in relational databases. Small…

While traditional Project Management has its own benefits for larger projects, they may not be very attractive to smaller businesses or smaller projects. Traditional Project Management is less flexible in its approach and has large overheads which may not be beneficial for smaller projects wherein the time spend for planning cannot be too long, as it leads to high overhead and the benefits of such projects are not realized. On the other hand, Agile Project Management has its obvious benefits, some of these are: smaller, cross-functional team size (5-9 people) very flexible (encourages change rather than following a plan) quick…

Every business be it small or large requires basic software for standard processes such as financial accounting, customer relationship management (CRM), task management, project management, human resource management, payroll management etc. It is often seen that most small businesses use spreadsheet applications to manage these processes, which undoubtedly has been the easiest option to adopt since decades. However, when these small businesses grow in size they face difficulties in migrating their data and processes to specialized software solutions. The business owners of most smaller organizations are either unaware of the free software solutions or are under the misconception that implementing…